Javic Homes Blog

Home Energy Monitoring – Does It Really Work? | September 26, 2011

In the past few years, there have been a variety of devices introduced to the market that monitor electric usage within homes.  I’ve looked at these from time to time, but have recently decided it’s time to jump in and try one on my personal home.

To my knowledge, no home builders in Tampa have done these as a standard feature, so my thinking is it was time to use my family as the guinea pigs.

So how does an energy monitor work?

Very simply, they track a home’s electric usage through sensors placed either on the meter or the breaker panel.  A monitor in the home provides info on the usage. Some systems provide insight at the circuit level or in categories, so you can see how a home’s electrical use is by room or major appliances, like the AC.  The video below provides a very good illustration.

The reality of these monitors is that the act of measuring doesn’t do a thing to save you money, but the fact that you have this information does change your behavior.  Studies show that this behavior change results in utility savings of 15%!

Well, that’s enough for me to test it out.  I’ll update you with my results over the coming weeks and let you know if it’s as advertised and hopefully you’ll see Javic Homes as the first Tampa home builder to offer this feature as a standard.  Stay tuned…

Follow us on our social networks –

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/javichomes

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/javichomes

LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jon-solomon/4/547/660

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/jondsolomon?feature=mhum